Posted on 07/31/2017 7:41:10 PM PDT by artichokegrower
The Tesla Model 3 has arrived with a whoosh, leaving some tech and automotive writers breathless and blushing.
Wired gasps its “much more than an electric car.” Mashable swoons the Model 3 is “pretty damn awesome.” Business Insider has a topper, saying “the entire world will want this car.” Others getting a few minutes behind the wheel — Tesla limited exposure — found it quite fetching. The first 30 cars were handed over to early supporters and employees Friday.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Yeah, if your commute is 100 miles a day, it doesn’t make much sense. If your commute is 50 miles per day, you won’t need to use gasoline unless you go on road trips. I’m sure your daughter’s hybrid gets great mileage, but she’s still using gasoline every day on her commute.
Problem is we usually go to our vacation house 110 miles away every weekend. Sometimes I go early and she meets me there. Sometimes she goes away on a road trip somewhere else, and I go out to the other house. So, the Leaf wouldn’t really work for us unless we bought it as a 3rd car which I’d be open to except we only get 2 resident parking passes in our complex. Oh well.
“I suppose when they can do a nine-second quarter mile and 0-60 in two seconds, I’ll be ready to buy one. “
For the four wheel drive Model S 100P
0-60: 2.28 sec.
1/4Mile: 10.44sec. @ 124.21 mph
Wow, unbelievable. Twenty years ago I would’ve said, “ain’t gonna happen.” Now it looks like they’ll eventually be able to beat anything with an internal combustion engine. They still sound like crap though!
“I advised my Daughter and Son-in-Law to buy a Toyota Corolla as their first car. They did so and it lasted them almost 8 trouble free miles.”
I can almost get that with my knees.
660 watts is one horsepower. So two horsepower is 1.2 kilowatt at a dime average. 20 hp is a buck, 200 hp is 10 bucks for an hour. That is ignoring the 20 % loss on chemical conversion.
Charging an electric car is not free, especially when you go over your average consumer usage and get charged extra per kilowatt hour.
Where I am currently living a kilowatt hour is 14 cents, so to charge an 80 kwh tesla is 11 bucks.
Cheaper than a tank of gas, but by the time you break even on a gas car, it’s time to buy a new battery bank.
Battery cars are expensive toys.
Actually, very little gas. She just changed jobs a few months ago. She was doing about 70 miles a day and using the freeway. Now her job is closer, and her commute is about 20 miles a day using city streets. Most of the time, her hybrid is silent running on battery power. Regenerative brakes put power back into the batteries. The gas engine kicks on when she needs to quickly accelerate, or when using a lot of accessories. Her Altima hybrid is similar to the Volt operation in that it uses the batteries whenever it can, and is a much better vehicle. It often carries 5 people plus luggage, and never needs to be plugged in for recharging, as the gas engine takes care of that.
The life span of the Tesla battery pack is projected to be 5 years, or 100,000 miles. The replacement cost is $10,000 bucks.
At the national average of 12,ooo miles a year you should get the full 5 years. Say you drove 20,000 a year to wring out the maximum from the battery pack till that’s ten cents a mile battery cost.
So each full charge in the Tesla costs 11 bucks in electricity and if you drove it the full 300 miles it will cost you 30 additional bucks in battery life making each fill up of a tesla cost 41 bucks.
With virtually every cheap car getting 20 miles a gallon these days and a gallon of gas at 3 bucks, it works out to .15 cents a mile for gas, or 45 bucks a virtual tesla tank.
Your savings per 1000 miles driven is less than 15 bucks. To make back your additional 20,000 bucks over cheap car costs, you will have to drive your Tesla one million three hundred and thirty three miles before you break even.
That of course is ignoring the chemical conversion effeciency losses of batteries, and lithium disposal fees. It is also ignoring cars that get 23 miles per gallon or more.
Battery cars are expensive toys.
Yeah, I'd favor a turbo/electric any day. (gas or diesel)
Battery cost on a 20 year old tesla is a new car.
I am driving a 20 year old diesel truck that cost a couple 12 volt batteries, a fuel filter, and some oil changes. 29,000 bucks less than a Tesla to operate in maintenance costs.
It has never been in the shop for anything. Put that in your energizer bunny and smoke it. Grin
My diesel gets an *actual* 53MPG on the highway and has a 700+ mile highway cruising range.When “recharging” is needed it can be done in about 4 minutes at any one of 30,000 “recharging” stations coast-to-coast.
Why would I *possibly* want a Tesla?
...
Not everybody needs or wants a Tesla. But over a half million people put down a deposit on one.
Not everybody needs or wants a diesel, either.
200,00 miles gets you two tesla battery exchanges for 10 grand each. At 6600 bucks for battery charges at 10 cents a kilowatt hour you are actually paying more than gas to operate a Tesla.
Yep, it’s a scam. Prius is Pious spelled by the marketing department.
The 2018 Ford Mustang GT has a 460 HP, 420 TQ, 5.0 Liter Engine. Unlike its Competitors it has Overhead Cams.
No Pushrods in that puppy.
(5.0 Liter = 302 Cubic Inches for us American Hot Rod types)
With the new 10 Speed Automatic it’s as fast 0-60 as the $65,000 2014 Corvette Stingray I used to own.
No interest in an all Electric Tesla or any other all Electric Car. Looks like it’s either the 2018 Mustang GT or a 60’s era Restomod for me come next year. #;^)
Have to enjoy my Golden Years.
True. But i will tell you not all lithium ion chargers are the same or have the exact same software controlling them.
It is more risky to be in a crash with these cars and their batteries because those hot, hot fires are extremely difficult to put out and water will not do it.
And then there are all the burned out batteries to be recycled or disposed of.
The Greenies never want to talk about the total impact of the entire life cycle beginning with obtaining and processing raw materials, to manufacturing, distribution, use, and final disposal.
And you don't have to pay $1,000 extra if you want a color other than black.
Can I get it with a front bench seat?
Thanks for running the numbers on the cost if a Tesla. It puts the discussion into better focus.
If the batteries cost $10k to replace after 5 years, that’s $2,000 per year to drive it on top of other fixed costs like recharging. Not to mention after 50% life the batteries get alot less able to hold a charge, so your recharge costs go up as well and the overall efficiency and distance driven go down, too.
Expensive toy.
The federal government is subsidizing those cars, which are the highest-polluting and least efficient yet devised. What's not to love?
Let’s be honest about it.
Nobody spends $40k or $50k or more, for a car that is “bare base stock”, and all of them would want the “dressed up” models, which all manufacturers of automobiles count on. I’d be very surprised if anyone that buys a Model 3 is going to settle for the bare bones model. As such, the whole idea of an affordable Model 3 was a barefaced lie.
At #40k or more, most (or all) people would expect the car to be dressed up as a luxury car, and bare-bone is a crock at that price.
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